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Plunging test scores are a slow-moving catastrophe

207 points · 414 comments · vinni2

  1. mkl95 · · focus · HN ↗
    It seems there is no working around learning to write and read properly. We've drifted away from this idea, which might lead to a "soft" dark age.
    1. pfortuny · · focus · HN ↗
      And memorizing. Rote learning makes the brain.
      1. yoyohello13 · · focus · HN ↗
        You were downvoted but also right. Memorization is an extremely useful skill to develop.
        1. watwut · · focus · HN ↗
          Rote memorization is very ineffective way to memorize things. That is why it was downvoted.
          1. Balooga · · focus · HN ↗
            How about instead of just saying what's wrong, say what's better?
          2. [deleted] · · focus · HN ↗

            [deleted]

      2. absoluteunit1 · · focus · HN ↗
        Not sure why this was downvoted. Memory is one of the most important skills imo

        Having a good memory enables you to think deeper - if you remember certain concepts, you can reason better because you remember more concepts so your thinking is more in depth.

        1. gambiting · · focus · HN ↗
          There's memorising and there's memorising.

          My history lessons at school were entirely "here's 30 dates of these important events happening, there will be a test at the end of the month where you have to name the event at each of the given dates". I just remember sitting there trying to somehow remember what happened on each of those random dates, what event was it that I knew nothing about with zero context other than the fact that it happened. I can confidently say that after I ended my formal education I remember 0 of any of those dates. That approach to teaching history is just completely wrong, I would have loved to be told WHY certain things happened not just when they happened, but the system wasn't designed for it.

          But maths formulas or even chemistry and physics - yes, that makes a lot of sense because you need to remember them and then you can actually use them to solve problems later.

          1. ArnoVW · · focus · HN ↗
            Yep. Even for maths, knowing why is king. Once you understand maths there is a whole bunch that makes sense and you can just derive.
            1. khazhoux · · focus · HN ↗
              > Once you understand maths there is a whole bunch that makes sense and you can just derive

              (trigger warning: I'm going to use the word "privilege" and hate myself for it...)

              The comment above is your math-brain privilege speaking. Not every kid has the required mathematical aptitude for that. You can reach a level of basic competency with repeated drilling and practice, but not everybody's brain is wired to be able to retain the conceptual foundations and then just derive the rest.

              This is where math education has gone off the rails, at least in California. It's great to introduce and emphasize the "why", but the curriculum has completely abandoned repetitive drilling. Kids aren't building up any muscle memory.

        2. steveBK123 · · focus · HN ↗
          More things in memory also leads to making more connections / recognizing more types of patterns more easily.

          There are things that you just see/know/recognize that are not easily searchable/promptable because the fact that you should be searching/prompting would not occur if you had not seen the pattern before.

          One could argue "experience" is just the accumulation of memory such that you can recognize more patterns more rapidly, short circuiting bad decisions before they are made. With LLMs its even more important to have a well tuned "what should be getting built" mental framework if that becomes our primary job.

      3. [deleted] · · focus · HN ↗

        [deleted]

    2. sneak · · focus · HN ↗
      I think most people don’t bother to use the reading and writing skills they did learn, so I doubt this is as big a deal as people think.

      More than half of the USA believes the Earth is less than 10k years old, and this has been true for decades. Being able to read isn’t enough, people have to actually do the reading.

      1. pixl97 · · focus · HN ↗
        What percentage of people drag us forward kicking and screaming into the future?
      2. JumpCrisscross · · focus · HN ↗
        > More than half of the USA believes the Earth is less than 10k years old

        Source?

        I thought it was around that magic 20% [1] figure for which you can find support in America for almost any idiocy.

        [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ncse.ngo&#x2F;americans-scientific-knowledge-and-beliefs-about-human-evolution-year-darwin" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ncse.ngo&#x2F;americans-scientific-knowledge-and-beliefs-...

        1. thrance · · focus · HN ↗
          <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.gallup.com&#x2F;poll&#x2F;647594&#x2F;majority-credits-god-humankind-not-creationism.aspx" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.gallup.com&#x2F;poll&#x2F;647594&#x2F;majority-credits-god-hum...

          This gives: 37% of Americans believing &quot;God created humans in their present form&quot;, 34% believing that &quot;God guided evolution&quot;, and only 24% believing &quot;Humans developed without God&quot;.

          &gt; Creationist Belief Linked to More Religious, Less Educated, More Conservative Americans

          1. JumpCrisscross · · focus · HN ↗
            Huh. Double what I thought. Thanks. I’d still say only the 37% counts for being crazy.
      3. zahlman · · focus · HN ↗
        Aside from the facts that a) the polls don&#x27;t actually show that and b) people professing religious beliefs aren&#x27;t necessarily as serious about them as you&#x27;d think (and can accept quite a bit of contradiction in them depending on the context), learning consists of something more than &quot;doing the reading&quot; and then choosing correctly what to believe from among what was read. When your outgroup doesn&#x27;t agree with you on something, generally it isn&#x27;t because they haven&#x27;t heard from your authorities; it&#x27;s because they don&#x27;t trust your authorities. (And why would they, given their perspective?)
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